Journal Entry #5 Morals and Dilemmas

Scout, Jem and Dill, the main children of the story live in a world full of prejudice based around race, class, age, and gender. Since they are still children and have not entered the adult world yet, they do not understand why everyone is treating people differently based on all of these factors, they just see everyone equally and want everyone treated the same, you can see this with Jem, after Tom Robinson lost the trial he was really mad and confused and did not want to harm even insects and wanted to see and treat all live on earth equally. I think the world would be a much better place if everyone had the same mindset as Scout, Jem and Dill. Much of history’s cruel things would not have happened and their would probably be peace all over the world. If we have similar dilemmas in our own live I think we should use the children’s mindset and see everyone exactly the same.
I think a important moral To Kill A Mockingbird teaches us that we can adopt in our own life is Atticus’s advice of seeing things from other people’s skin, this way people can understand each other better and help come up with solutions and not get into arguments or fights, which could result in horrible things like the unfair trial of Tom Robinson. I think another moral the character’s offer us is, to be yourself and to break the “rules” of society, for example Scout who is a tomboy was expected to grow up to be a lady even though she did not want to grow up that way. In Maycomb around that time everyone just followed the stereotypes with a very few exceptions. Finally, one of the most important morals of the book is having justice for everyone and not “to kill a mockingbird” like Tom Robinson or other innocent people. All of these morals we can adopt and modify into our own lives. The one thing most character’s in Maycomb do is prejudice, everyone should reject prejudice from their lives.

Writing from a different perspective

It is around 9:30 p.m., I am about to leave my house to check on Tom Robinson, I know something is going to happen to him. “I’m going out for a while,” I said. “You folks’ll be in bed when I come back, so I’ll say good night now.” I got a long electrical extension cord with a light bulb, I wanted to bring light to the cell so I could see Tom Robinson, have light to read, and for if other people would come.

I arrived at the jail and connected the electrical extension cord on the second floor going through a window so I could have light outside since the prison does not have a light. I was expecting a group of people to come bother Tom Robinson so I wanted to protect him, Mr. Heck Tate also got my back. I suddenly hear the sound of a couple of cars, I look up from my newspaper and see cars coming towards me, I was expecting something like this. Men are starting coming out of the cars. I know what they want, they are a lynch mob, and they want to kill Tom Robinson just skipping the trial altogether. I recognize one of them, It is Walter Cunningham, a man I helped a while ago since he could not pay back in money. I clearly see that Walter is one of the leaders of the mob since he addressed me first and he is in the front. I see that they are farmers because of their overalls and denim shirts buttoned up to the collars, it’s the old Sarum bunch.

I am afraid, but I don’t want to show it, “You can turn around and go home again, Walter,” I told Mr. Cunningham “Heck Tate’s around somewhere.” I add to convince him of leaving, since I know Heck Tate got me covered. “Heck’s bunch’s so deep in the woods they won’t get out till mornin‘.” he said. After hearing this I just remained calm, “that changes things, doesn’t it?” I asked, “It do,” came from another deep voice in the shadow. Suddenly, I see my daughter coming out of nowhere, at this moment I felt real fear for a couple of seconds since I did not want her to get hurt, a couple moments later I see Jem and Dill coming as well. I am disappointed in them, but I don’t blame them since they are still kids. I tell them to go home, but they don’t, I’m standing face to face with Jem who isn’t scared to state his point, which is “i’m not going home”.

Scout seems to notice a familiar face in the mob, “Hey, Mr. Cunningham.” she said. Walter isn’t responding. FInally after she keeps talking to Walter and asking him to say hi to his son he responds with, “I’ll tell him you said hey, little lady,”. Now Walter instructs the men to leave, I understand why they are leaving, when you start to expose the individual identities of a mob it starts to lose it’s power since the people in the mob are no longer anonymous. After they left I turned to a wall and started crying and I was extremely relieved. I am thankful for Scout helping to get the men to leave, but I’m still disappointed that they could have gotten themselves harmed or even killed.

Journal Entry Four: Morphine Overdose

In To Kill A Mockingbird Mrs. Dubose was addicted to morphine. Mrs. Dubose wanted Jem to read her books 6 days a week for two hours. This caused her to slowly become less addicted and have a normal death. Morphine overdose can cause death, but the amount of Morphine you need to take in to die from it depends on the person’s body. When someone is already taking morphine they need to take a lot more morphine to die from it then a person who has never used it.

When you have a morphine overdose the patient becomes very tired, stops talking and eventually becomes unresponsive. This is something we saw when Jem was reading to her and she became really unresponsive and didn’t really listen. Having too much morphine is really unhealthy since you can easily get addicted and your body starts to get used to it.

Journal Entry Three: Difference Between Negro, Nigger, Nigga, Colored, Black, African-American

Negro, Nigger, Nigga, Colored, Black, and African-American in reality all mean a black person, but these words are still very different. One of the big differences of these different terms is how “offensive” the word is. One of the least “offensive” of these terms would be colored or African-American and the most “offensive” would be nigger or nigga.

Now what do these words actually mean. Around the 1930s when the Jim Crow laws existed there were a lot of signs that said colored, on the oxford dictionary the definition of person of color is: A person who is not white or of European parentage, this made me wonder about ethnicities like asian, if they would be considered “colored”. From what I can infer in the 1930s colored just meant a black person, but I think they tried to say it in a less offensive way.

Then there is African-American, according to the oxford dictionary this means: A black American. So again this term is very similar to the other ones, but it’s one of the least offensive ones. The term “negro” was commonly used around the 1930s against black people, you can see this in To Kill A Mockingbird. It means: A member of a dark-skinned group of peoples originally native to Africa south of the Sahara. A lot of people think the word “Afro-American” is the only historically accurate and humanly significant designation of this large portion of the American population. A lot of people agree with that the word “Negro” is an inaccurate term which maintains the master-slave mentality in the minds of both black and white Americans.

Americans of African descent have been arguing about names ever since they were forcibly transported from Africa by Europeans who arbitrarily branded them “Blackamoors,” “Moors,” and “negros.” The English word “Negro” is based of the Spanish and Portuguese word negro. The Portuguese and Spanish named the African men and women whom they captured this. Within a short time, the Portuguese word negro became the English noun-adjective “negro.” This word was not capitalized at first, it integrated not only humanity, nationality and place of origin but also certain white judgements about the inherent inferiority of the persons so designated. The word also referred to certain Jim Crow places.

The most offensive term of all these terms is “nigger” or “nigga”. On oxford dictionary, nigger is described as: A contemptuous term for a black or dark-skinned person. And is labeled as offensive. Today, the term “nigga” is used a lot in hip-hop music, Some African-Americans don’t find it offensive if they call each other that term, but do find it offensive when a non African-American calls them that, primarily because it is seen as really offensive and because of the complex history between the races.

Journal Entry Two: Economic Differences and Socioeconomic Status In The 1930s

In the great depression, there was not much money and also not much food. There were different families with all different incomes. In To Kill A Mockingbird you can see this with Walter, one day he did not have any food and his teacher Miss Caroline offered him a quarter to buy lunch, he declined this offer since he knew he wasn’t going to be able to pay her back. This example shows that a lot of families had a different kind of income and even though there were some more wealthy families the majority didn’t have a lot of money because of The Great Depression.

The great depression caused many families to lose a significant amount of their income, in 1933 the average family income dropped to $1,500, in 1929 this amount was $2,300 meaning that the average family income had fallen by 40%. Millions of families also lost their savings after banks collapsed in the 1930s. Unable to pay rent, many families got evicted from their homes and their apartments.

All of this is evident in the book. Since Atticus is a lawyer, the Finch family has enough money to buy food and live relatively normally. Other families, for example, the Cunningham’s have a harder time, since Walter did not have lunch at school and Walter’s father could not pay back Atticus in real money. The fact that the Ewell’s only go to school one day a year might also be because of their socioeconomic status; they maybe have to work instead of going to school.

The Great Depression caused many more things, marriage rates declined, and the trend towards decreased birth rates, accelerated in the 1930s. Surprisingly, the divorcing rates declined, this seems to have been largely the consequence of the inability to pay lawyers’ fees; Many families suffered from malnutrition and inadequate clothing, this also resulted in 250000 youths being on the road searching for work or better conditions.